Alban Pendergast
"The world, as they say, is now my oyster—and I promise you it’ll be a more interesting place with me loose in it.” Alban Pendergast was the elder twin son of Aloysius Pendergast and Helen Esterhazy Pendergast. Appearance Alban was tall and fit, with strong Nordic features. Standing at six feet, three inches in height, he had the pale angular face, high-domed forehead and light blond hair characteristic of the Pendergast family, but with his mother's sculptured lips and blue-violet eyes. Early Life Alban was born in Nova Godói, Brazil, to Aloysius Pendergast and the late Helen Esterhazy Pendergast. He was the elder twin brother of Tristram Pendergast and the nephew of Judson Esterhazy and Diogenes Pendergast. He was born under the care of a group of Nazi loyalists called Der Bund, or "the Covenant," that fled Europe after World War II and established itself in Nova Godói. He and his twin were the products of generations of genetic experiments conducted by the Covenant to produce the ideal Nazi soldier to establish and maintain the Fourth Reich. The experiments swapped the genetic material between the embryos of twins—the best of both embryos was transferred exclusively to one embryo, while the inferior genes of both were moved to the other. Alban Lorimer Alban was the Übermensch realized, "creative and strong, beyond the petty considerations of good and evil," and capable of leveraging the Copenhagen Window to see the branching possibilities of a situation up to fifteen seconds into the future and select the most likely outcome. His twin, meanwhile, was relegated to menial field labor, known only by the number "Forty-Seven" and safely serving as a live "farm" of spare parts should the genetically superior Alban become injured. The Hotel Killer and Disappearance As a "beta test" of the program's success, Alban, using the name "Alban Lorimer," was tasked with committing a series of murders in New York designed to pit him against the forensic and investigative skills of his father. When Forty-Seven escaped and found Pendergast, Alban's test parameters were adapted to include kidnapping his brother from Pendergast's Riverside Drive mansion. He succeeded, and the twins returned to Nova Godói with Pendergast in pursuit. Tasked with tracking and killing his father after the FBI agent was captured and promptly escaped from his Covenant captors in Nova Godói, an overconfident Alban instead elected to toy with Pendergast during their confrontations, and Forty-Seven—now named "Tristram" by Pendergast—led an uprising among the twins which ultimately led to the destruction of the fortress and the death or surrender of all of the Covenant scientists and soldiers. Alban escaped when Pendergast could not bring himself to kill his own son, disappearing into the Amazon rain forest. Adler Family Past and Future Plans Alban spent time recovering from his injuries in the rain forest with a small tribe of Indians while planning his revenge against his father. At some point, he traveled to Rio, using his skills of disguise and deception to disappear into one of its most notorious favelas, the "City of Angels," led by the gangster O Punho–"The Fist"–and his posse. Alban acquired the identity and residence of a lone drifter, taking on the persona of a twenty-one-year-old Brazilian citizen named Adler and continuing his plans. He began researching the Pendergast family history, ultimately coming across Hezekiah Pendergast—his own great-great--great-grandfather. Hezekiah had devised and marketed a famous elixir in the late nineteenth century that helped restore the family's fortunes, though it was later exposed as an addictive and lethal blend of toxic ingredients responsible for several painful, wasting deaths, including Hezekiah's own wife. Alban traveled to the United States to meet with the descendant of two of Hezekiah's victims: John Barbeaux, whose great-grandparents had both not only succumbed to the elixir, but passed its effects on genetically to their descendents, causing seemingly random deaths in Barbeaux's family—including his only son. Alban revealed the history of the elixir and the cause of what Barbeaux's family had always called "the family affliction," and together they conspired to recreate Hezekiah's elixir and poison Pendergast himself with it. The Angel After returning to the favela, Alban fell in love with a twenty-five-year-old woman named Danika Egland, known as the "Angel of the Favelas" for the way she fearlessly entered the notorious fortified slums to give away medicine, food and money, preaching education and independence. They were drawn to each other, though she kept their relationship a secret from her family, who disapproved of her work in the favelas for fear of her safety. She refused to live with him, but the couple soon learned she was pregnant, and wed in secret. Alban's history of order with the Covenant, meanwhile, began to manifest itself as he grew increasingly obsessed with taking over the leadership of the favela, believing he could turn it from a disorganized slum led by thugs into a lean, efficient organized operation, and he soon had a clever plan to stage a coup. His plans were betrayed, however, and the leader of the favela surrounded his home and burned it to the ground. Alban was away, but his wife and unborn child were killed in the fire. Tapanes Landberg / Alban Pendergast Vengeance and Redemption Alban turned his immense grief into a deep bloodlust. He went to the fortified compound of the gang that ran the favela, heavily armed and alone, and unleashed an "orgy of violence" that left the Fist and all of his henchmen dead. His trusted friend and lieutenant claimed that Danika's goodness and her brutal end changed Alban, who suddenly understood what was right and what was wrong in the world. He took control of the City of Angels and set it on the path of transformation, eliminating the drugs, gangs, hunger and cruelty that had plagued it before. He also tasked his lieutenant, a man named Fábio, with finding Pendergast and telling him of his son's redemption, should anything ever happen to him. Death Alban visited his brother Tristram at the latter's boarding school in Switzerland, weeping and begging for his twin's forgiveness. He then returned to the United States to meet again with Barbeaux and put a stop to the plans he had set in motion, but Barbeaux refused. Knowing that Alban would attempt to kill him—and having deduced Alban's unique temporal abilities—Barbeaux set up another meeting, during which he overpowered and killed Alban, strangling him with a shoelace. Barbeaux's men then bound and gagged him before dumping his body at the front door of Pendergast's Riverside Drive mansion, setting off the events of Blue Labyrinth.Category:Pendergast Family Category:The Covenant Category:Two Graves Category:Blue Labyrinth Category:Deceased